Review of: 'Frans Hals' (2023)
September 2024
NORBERT E. MIDDELKOOP
Review of: B. Cornelis, F. Lammertse, J. Rinnooy Kan and J. van der Veen, Frans Hals, New Haven [Yale University Press, exh. The National Gallery, London and Rijksmuseum Amsterdam], 2023
A year after the successful Vermeer exhibition, Frans Hals debuted at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, completing a triptych of shows dedicated to the artists traditionally seen as the three leading Dutch masters of the seventeenth century, beginning with Late Rembrandt in 2015. It has been thirty years since the Frans Hals Museum hosted an exhibition dedicated to the Haarlem portraitist. This time around it was the Rijksmuseum which combined forces with the National Gallery in London, where it would appear first. The Gemäldegalerie in Berlin subsequently joined the project and is host to the exhibition in the summer of 2024, with a slightly varying selection of works by Frans Hals as well as by other artists, and a separate catalogue.[1]
One might ask oneself why the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem was not involved in organizing the exhibition. After all, the institution was host to the previous three large shows dedicated to its namesake, in 1937, 1962, and most recently in 1990. Yet this time, the museum was involved in the exhibition only as an ‘official partner’. This took form in several important loans to the exhibition: one civic guard painting and one group portrait of governors travelled to London; while two of each genre were sent to nearby Amsterdam.[2] The Rijksmuseum is certainly better equipped to manage large crowds than the Frans Hals Museum, with a marketing machine capable of whetting appetites for a pictorial genre that for the general museum visitor is not as easy to digest as Vermeer’s domestic scenes. On the Rijksmuseum’s website the Haarlem painter is presented as “extraordinarily productive, innovative, entertaining and a little rough around the edges”, as if we are dealing with a celebrity icon. Whether the expectations raised by the juicy slogan fully conveys the contents of the show or not, there was definitely much to be excited about when visiting the exhibition – and reading the accompanying book.
Left: Cover of Frans Hals.
Middle: Image 1. Frans Hals, Portrait of a couple, probably Isaac Massa and Beatrix van der Laen, ca. 1622, oil on canvas, 140 x 166,5 cm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. SK-A-133.
Middle: Image 2. Frans Hals, Portrait of a man, ca. 1635, oil on canvas, 79,5 x 66,5 cm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. SK-A-1246.
Right: Image. 3. Frans Hals, Portrait of a woman, ca. 1635, oil on canvas, 81,5 x 68 cm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. SK-A-1247.
Hals’ oeuvre spans over fifty years, from his two early portraits of a couple, divided between the Birmingham Barber Institute of Arts and the Devonshire Collection at Chatsworth House, to the two late group portraits of the male and female governors of the Haarlem Old Men’s Almshouse from the Frans Hals Museum – all of which were included in the Amsterdam show.[3] Unlike the London venue, where the paintings were presented in a predominantly chronological order, thus visualizing the artistic development of the painter, the Rijksmuseum opted for a thematic approach, grouping the works under headings like ‘Breathe’ (for married couples), ‘Laughter’ (genre paintings and tronies), ‘Twinkle’ (families and children), ‘Bold’ (single male portraits), and ‘Smearing’ (late governors portraits).
Although these keywords were clearly chosen to correspond with the general visitor’s frame of reference, the choice hampered possibilities to create an overview of Hals’ gradual stylistic development. It also obscured the fact that there were only two individual portraits dating after 1648, hung in different rooms than the governors portraits from the final years of Hals’ career. This made it difficult to compare works done in the artist’s Altersstil. In London, three additional late individual portraits were shown together with the male governors; the female governors featured only in Amsterdam, alongside their male counterparts.[4]
These two imposing group portraits have been recently restored in the Frans Hals Museum’s conservation studio – and they look magnificent. Moreover, the exhibition was directly preceded by a major conservation project in the National Gallery’s studio. Thanks to this undertaking, the Birmingham-Chatsworth couple has never looked better, even more so because they were presented in new, identical period frames (figs. 58-59).[5] Unfortunately, the white wall against which they were shown in the Rijksmuseum made it difficult to fully appreciate their revived qualities. The large, lesser-known Fruit and vegetable seller, painted in collaboration with Claes van Heussen (fig. 27), has likewise regained its sparkling power after conservation treatment in London, further aided by a new temporary frame. But the biggest revelation was the discovery made during the treatment of Isaac Massa’s 1622 portrait from Chatsworth of the allegorical figures of Envy and Death in the background, which were overpainted after the sitter’s death (figs. 94-100, pp. 125-127), Their reference to Massa’s biography and his attitude of defiance towards his detractors explain his exceptionally challenging pose. In the book that accompanies the exhibition, this major discovery is presented and illustrated in brief at the end of Bart Cornelis’ thorough essay ‘Portraiture into art’, although it certainly was deserving of a separate entry.
Going through the book, it becomes clear that the primary target group for this publication is the visitor to the exhibition, supposedly eager to bring a souvenir home to enjoy its text and images. Readers are offered a series of well-written essays in which the works in the exhibition are briefly discussed and illustrated, accompanied by many attractive, full-page details. Among specialists in the field however, the absence of separate entries on the works is regrettable for a variety of reasons.
For instance, the exhibition and the book express differing views on the identities of Hals’ sitters. In the exhibition, the Rijksmuseum’s own Married couple in a garden (fig. 61, see image 1) was described as portraying “probably Isaac Massa and Beatrix van der Laen” (p. 92). In the National Gallery the identification was presented with more certainty, given Cornelis’ reference to it (p. 120 and 127), and its thoughtful hanging between two of Hals’ other three portraits of Massa, allowing the visitor to compare and form an opinion on the – in my view convincing – similarity of these likenesses.
The subjects of the impressive Family group in a landscape (fig. 62) from the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, showing a happy couple with a teenage girl and boy, plus a young black servant in their midst, remain anonymous in the book, but not in the exhibition, surprisingly. The wall label in Amsterdam identified them as possibly the family of Jacob Ruychaver, who served as director-general at the Fort St. George d’Elmina on the Gold Coast (today’s Ghana). Ruychaver was active in the Atlantic trade of enslaved people from Africa and is documented to have returned to reside in his hometown of Haarlem between 1646 and 1650. Both the estimated dating and the composition of the family correspond with what is known about Ruychaver.[6] Sadly, the name of the young servant remains unknown, though he would have been taken from the Gold Coast by Ruychaver. Let us presume the source for this persuasive hypothesis was published too late (in May 2023) to be included in one of the essays. Even so, the reader would undoubtedly have loved to know more about the possible meaning of the servant’s exceptional and sensitive presence in Hals’ painting. Instead we learn only that the woman’s facial expression is “both tender and slightly forbidding” (p. 90).
Left: Image 4. Abraham de Vries, The Governors of the Civic Orphanage, 1633, oil on canvas, 257 x 401 cm, Amsterdam, Amsterdam Museum, loan Spirit, inv. SB 4846. Detail showing Nicolaes Hasselaer.
Middle: Image 5. Bartholomeus van der Helst, The Headmen of the Longbow Civic Guard, 1653, oil on canvas, 183 x 268 cm, Amsterdam, Amsterdam Museum, inv. SA 7329. Detail showing Jan van de Poll.
Right: Image 6. Johann Spilberg, Banquet of Civic Guardsmen of District 7, 1650-53, oil on canvas, 279,5 x 589 cm, Amsterdam, Amsterdam Museum, inv. SA 7406. Detail showing Jan van de Poll.
Another Rijksmuseum couple remained deprived of identification, although the provenance of these two fine portraits from the mid-1630s (shown in Amsterdam only, see images 2-3) seemed to point in the direction of Nicolaes Hasselaer and his second wife Sara van Diemen, as does the comparison with a readily identifiable portrait of Hasselaer (see image 4).[7] Notably, the shortlist of literature on these paintings in the back of the book fails to mention Bas Dudok van Heel’s recent essay in which he defends the credibility of their traditional identification.[8] It does not help either that the two portraits are not reproduced in the book. The matter is especially of interest in light of the announcement made at the Frans Hals Scholars’ Day on 22 May 2024 by the Rijksmuseum’s research curator Jonathan Bikker, who unexpectedly proposed a brand-new identification for the couple. In his view, the portraits show the Amsterdam wood merchant Jan van de Poll (1597-1678) and his wife Duyfje van Gerwen (1618-1658), and must have been made on the occasion of their marriage in June 1637. He came to this conclusion after studying the painted pair’s probable provenance, as well as comparing the likeness of the male sitter to two portraits of Van de Poll from the early 1650s (see images 5-6).[9] Without a doubt, Bikker will publish his findings shortly, so we will have to wait until then to read the full story.[10] However, as the alleged similarities to the other portraits are at least disputable, the unconditional enthusiasm with which the Rijksmuseum has spread this breaking news in the final week of its exhibition is all the more surprising.
It is also striking that another recent hypothesis, this time about the identity of the Edinburgh-based couple dated ca. 1645 (shown only in London, figs. 86-87), is presented without question.[11] In this case, their identification as François Wouters (1600-1661) and his second wife Susanna Bailly (1627 or ca. 1629-before 1697), who married in August 1645, is not convincing, as Susanna was too young to be the considerably elder woman in the portrait.[12] If one believes the male portrait represents Wouters, based on the comparison with his portraits in two Hals group portraits of 1639 and 1640/1641, the companion piece would likely portray Wouters’ first wife, Maria de Haen (1601/02-1644). This would mean both portraits date prior to her death in May 1644.[13] In contrast, Pieter Biesboer’s cautious ‘possible’ identification of the Laughing cavalier of 1624 (fig. 78) as Tieleman Roosterman, remains entirely unmentioned, even in the listed literature on the painting (pp. 107 and 212), despite Roosterman’s portrait of 1634 being featured in the show (fig. 9).[14]
The same goes for the Portrait of a man (1630) in the U.K. Royal Collection (fig. 80, p. 112, only shown in London), who has been tentatively identified by Frans Grijzenhout. The age of the sitter and date of the painting make it a logical fit with Godfried van den Heuvel (ca. 1594/95-1669), whose portrait by Hals is listed in a 1675 inventory.[15] Grijzenhout’s essay is mentioned in the bibliography, but remarkably not included in the selected literature on this painting (p. 213). Regardless, it appears that it matters little to Bart Cornelis, as he writes “the identity of the sitter is in no way crucial to our appreciation of a portrait of exceptional quality, in much the same way as we do not need to know the identity of The laughing cavalier to recognize its pre-eminence as a work of art” (p. 112).
Finally, in the gallery with the late portraits of the male and female governors of the Old Men’s Almshouse, at the very end of the Amsterdam exhibition, the tireless visitor would have noticed that the identities of the house father and mother, hitherto unknown, were revealed on the wall labels as Lucas van der Out and Trijntje Stoffels. In the book, however, one will look in vain for their names, let alone for biographical information about them. Admittedly, both in the show and in the book the names of sitters in the exhibited group portraits are not provided, with the exception of those of the captain and lieutenant of the ‘Meagre company’ (fig. 70), Hals’ only Amsterdam civic guard painting. As far as this group portrait is concerned, one can therefore only wonder what the authors think of the proposed identifications of other guardsmen that have been suggested in recent years, relevant literature on the subject likewise missing (p. 213).[16]
If the book had included separate entries for the works, the reader might have been able to learn more about the reasons for suggesting, confirming, or denying identifications in each of these individual cases. Moreover, entries provide suitable platforms for additional information that does not fit into essays, like short biographies of the sitters portrayed. New insights presented by Friso Lammertse: that Pieter Cornelisz van der Morsch ’s real name is Van der Mersch (fig. 151, p. 163); the Rommel-pot player might depict Haarlem loony ‘Malle Boontje’ (fig. 172, p. 184); and a “Malle Babbe van Frans Hals” changed hands in Amsterdam as early as 1689 (p. 181), are easily overlooked in his fine history of laughter in Dutch seventeenth-century painting. This is also the case with Cornelis’ interesting remarks about a possible identification of the Barber-Chatsworth couple, now well hidden in the footnotes (p. 195, n. 6).
On the other hand, given the number of portraits that have been identified, one would expect more attention paid to Hals’ clientele as a whole, an aspect that remains underexposed now. For instance, the reader might have liked to learn more about the possible preferences of the Haarlem elite and clergymen for specific portraitists, in accordance with their denominations. And what do the commissions for Hals from residents of other cities tell us about the painter’s reputation, compared to those of his contemporaries? In this line of inquiry, the passages in the book dedicated to the notorious ‘Meagre company’, the civic guard painting finished by Pieter Codde are rather meagre indeed, given its importance to Hals’ life and oeuvre (fig. 70, pp. 38-39, 71 and 113). Both the book and the wall label in the Rijksmuseum claim Hals received the commission from Amsterdam civic guardsmen because of his “extraordinary gift as a painter of group portraits” (p. 113) and the “widespread acclaim he enjoyed at the time” (wall label). The recently raised contention that the commission might have been inspired by the initiators’ expectations for a cheaper deal with Hals than with Amsterdam painters – whose agendas were quite full at the time – is clearly not taken into account.[17] Clients do feature in Jaap van der Veen’s essay on the life of Frans Hals, which for that reason alone would have deserved more pages. Nevertheless, the essay contains important new information about the early reception of the artist, such as the inclusion of Hals’ name on a 1621 list of artists in whose work the Danish king Christian IV might have been interested, and a previously unpublished inventory of Isaac Massa’s estate (pp. 36-38).
An exhibition and an accompanying book devoted to one artist might not be the ideal place for an art historical discussion on issues of attribution, as both are intended primarily for the unsuspicious visitor, at least according to the organizing museums. However, it cannot be denied that the determination of Frans Hals’ oeuvre has been the subject of fierce debate in the past, most notably between Claus Grimm and the late Seymour Slive. Their conflicting opinions, known to the field since the early 1970s, reached public awareness during the Frans Hals exhibition of 1989-1990, leading to a climax at a symposium organized by the London Royal Academy, during which both scholars expressed their views. On the occasion of the first major gathering of Hals paintings since then, one would have expected some attention devoted to this sensitive issue in a foreword or introductory essay. The choice to keep quiet about differing opinions on attributions also disguises the fact that from the list of 59 exhibited works (the selections in London and Amsterdam differing slightly), twelve paintings were not accepted by Grimm in 1989 as autograph, including both Fisherboys and both Family groups.[18]
The text of three chapters of Grimm’s latest catalogue raisonné – his third – were published digitally by the RKD in November 2023, followed by the catalogue entries on 4 July 2024 – too late for the compilers of the exhibition to take into account.[19] Although Grimm’s point of view has become less contentious over the years, one can understand why the makers of the exhibition preferred to subscribe to Slive’s thorough study – although it would be nice to know what made them decide to change the estimated dates of seventeen of the exhibited works significantly from those put forward by Slive. Additionally, the Rommel-pot player could have benefitted from more analysis regarding its attribution to Hals (p. 74 and 184, fig. 172), as numerous versions are known. The one from Fort Worth, present in the exhibition, was only accepted as an original by Slive in 1989. Another painting, the Portrait of Pieter Olycan (not in the show), that was not accepted by Slive, features as ‘a copy’ in the essay about workshop practice and copies (fig. 39). The fact that it was published as an original work in 2006 by Hals specialists Pieter Biesboer and Martin Bijl, as well as by Bas Dudok van Heel and Marten Jan Bok in 2013, is ignored.[20]
Finally, the early, small and recently resurfaced Young man holding gloves (fig. 73), known to Slive only through black-and-white photos and therefore labeled as ‘doubtful’ in 1974, appears exclusively in the context of comparisons with Willem Buytewech and Dirck Hals – as 100% by Frans Hals.[21] It would have been worthwhile though to include it as well in the informative essay by Justine Rinnooy Kan on ‘Portrait prints’, in which all of Hals’ known painted models for portrait prints are discussed and visualized at scale (p. 152-153). To me, the possibility that Frans Hals produced the Young man as a showpiece, in order to demonstrate his ability to provide rapidly painted small-scale models, with obvious benefits for both sitters and engravers, is worth exploring further. The panel might just precede the earliest-known dated example, the 1617 Portrait of Theodorus Schrevelius (fig. 106, not in the show). Be that as it may, this good essay did not inspire the makers of the exhibition to include more than one of these models (fig. 115), which was only accompanied by the print in London, (fig. 116).
For the seasoned scholar there might not have been a lot to learn from the Frans Hals exhibition, but there was plenty to enjoy, especially if you like portraiture and loose brushwork. In Amsterdam, a few white walls competed with the works hanging on them – fortunately the majority of the paintings were shown against a dark greyish-blue background. But it was simply breath-taking to finally meet several reunited couples. Besides the Barber-Chatsworth panels, the robust portrait of Tieleman Roosterman was united with that of his exuberantly dressed wife Catharina Brugman for the first time in living memory (figs. 9-10 ). Moreover, the juxtaposition of Michiel de Wael’s lively portrait (fig. 84) with that of a self-confident young woman with an arm akimbo (fig. 85), introduced without hesitation as his spouse Cunera van Baersdorp, was long-awaited (pp. 112-113).[22] They might convince as would-be companion pieces, but the canvas structure of both works is still to be compared before conclusions about the paintings’ mutual relationship can be drawn.
Furthermore, the happy gathering in one exhibition of smiling drinkers, (fisher)children, actors, violin, lute and flute players – even a “sex worker”, as she was described on the Rijksmuseum label (the Louvre Bohémienne, fig. 159) – was simply a feast for the eyes and left you with a smile on your face. Paintings, like the magnificent Laughing cavalier (fig. 78), that can usually only be studied as isolated masterworks were now presented in the stimulating context of related works. At the National Gallery it was accompanied by portraits from the same period; at the Rijksmuseum it featured among portraits of other ‘Bold’ men, most of them with an arm akimbo or turned in their chairs – a bit reminiscent of the Wallace Collection’s 2021-2022 exhibition The male portrait.[23]
The Frans Hals exhibition at the National Gallery and the Rijksmuseum was not the natural successor of ‘Rembrandt: The master and his workshop’, organized by the same two institutions plus the Berlin Gemäldegalerie in the early 1990s.[24] Bart Cornelis and Friso Lammertse, the curators who compiled the London and Amsterdam exhibitions, made a clear choice by leaving out Hals’ contemporaries and focusing entirely on his isolated genius as a portrait painter: his loose touch, his ability to suggest movement and immortalize the challenging facial expressions of his sitters. With this in mind, the book could have been compiled as a welcome addition to the visitors’ experience of observing seventeenth-century citizens, folk figures, and children, immortalized by Hals. Most of them will not have noticed the absence of comparable works by other Haarlem portraitists like Frans de Grebber, Johannes Verspronck or Salomon and Jan de Bray, to name the most obvious. However, they are hardly mentioned in the book either, although at least Friso Lammertse and Jaap van der Veen inform the reader briefly about the inspiration Frans Hals took from Flemish portraiture (pp. 54-55), as well as – at length – about his studio practice and pupils, including a hitherto unknown story about a deal Jan Miense Molenaer made on imitating Adriaen Brouwer (p. 78). Only the promising statement on the Rijksmuseum website – “his distinctive, freewheeling style of painting became so influential that it’s easy to forget that he was its founder” – remained unfulfilled, as both visitor and reader will look in vain for paintings by nineteenth-century Hals admirers like Gustave Courbet, Edouard Manet, and Vincent van Gogh, to mention but a few. Yet indeed, that subject was covered by 2018-19 exhibition Frans Hals and the moderns, held in Haarlem.[25] And of course, Hals’ signature ‘rough style’ has already been compared to that of other old masters in the 2013 show Frans Hals: Eye to eye with Rembrandt, Rubens and Titian, again at the Frans Hals Museum.[26]
If art lovers are curious to learn more about Frans Hals’ portraits in context, they should certainly visit the third and final venue of the exhibition in Berlin, curated by Katja Kleinert and Erik Eising (12 July - 3 November 2024). At the Gemäldegalerie, about fifty paintings by Frans Hals – the selection differing somewhat from the preceding venues – is confronted with those by several Haarlem contemporaries, including pupils, as well as by impressionist followers like Wilhelm Leibl, Lovis Corinth, and Max Liebermann. The Berlin venue is also accompanied by a catalogue with separate entries on the exhibited works.
Amidst the exceptional chance to admire so many of Hals’ paintings together at once, we should not forget that the Frans Hals Museum still has a lot to offer at present, even with its loans to the exhibition on tour. With a good number of Hals’ group portraits still in Haarlem, plus two handfuls of individual portraits, any visitor to the exhibition should be encouraged to travel to the museum that bears the name of the artist. It is the perfect way to complete the rich experience offered by the exhibition, and compare Hals’ paintings to those of other Haarlem masters, see work by his pupils, and thus acknowledge his outstanding qualities as an extraordinary portrait painter all the more.
Dr. Norbert E. Middelkoop
Senior Curator of Paintings, Prints and Drawings
Amsterdam Museum
This review was copyedited by Angela Bartholomew and Menno Jonker with funding from the Fondation Custodia.
NOTES:
[1] D. Hirschfelder, K. Kleinert and E. Eising (eds), Cat. Exhib. Frans Hals: Master of the Fleeting Moment, Berlin (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie) 2024.
[2] At the National Gallery, the Banquet of the Officers of the St George Civic Guard (ca. 1627) and the Regents of the Old Men’s Almshouse were shown; the Rijksmuseum also presented the 1616 Banquet of the Officers of the St George Civic Guard and the Regentesses of the Old Men’s Almshouse.
[3] Portrait of a Man holding a Skull (ca. 1612), Birmingham, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts; Portrait of a Woman standing (ca. 1612), Chatsworth, The Devonshire Collection. For the governors’ group portraits, see previous note.
[4] At the Amsterdam venue, the Rijksmuseum’s own small Portrait of a man, possibly a Clergyman (ca. 1658) and the Cassel Man in a slouch hat (ca. 1660) were shown; the London venue did not include the first, but featured instead the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Portrait of a man ( ca. 1650), the Ferens Art Gallery’s Portrait of a young woman ( ca. 1658) and the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Portrait of an unknown man (ca. 1660).
[5] The figure and page numbers in this review refer to the English version of the accompanying book.'
[6] I. Mok and D. Stam, Haarlemmers en de slavernij, Haarlem 2023, pp. 47-54.
[7] Abraham de Vries, The governors of the Amsterdam civic orphanage, 1633, Amsterdam Museum, inv. SB 4844 (Hasselaer sits to the far right), see N.E. Middelkoop, Schutters, gildebroeders, regenten en regentessen: Het Amsterdamse corporatiestuk 1525-1850, PhD. Diss. University of Amsterdam 2019, vol. 3, pp. 885-886, no. R. 58.
[8] S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘Nicolaes Hasselaer (1593-1635) en Sara van Diemen (1594-1667): De identificatie van twee portretten van Frans Hals in ere hersteld’, Amstelodamum 102 (2015), pp. 139-145.
[9] Johannes Spilberg, Banquet of civic guardsmen of precinct 7, with Colonel Jan van de Poll and Captain Gijsbert van de Poll, 1650-1653 (Van de Poll sitting to the far right), and Bartholomeus van der Helst, The headmen of the longbow civic guard house, 1653 (Van de Poll sitting in front of the table), Amsterdam Museum, inv. SA 7406 and SA 7329, see Middelkoop 2019 (note 3), pp. 820-822, nos. S. 90-91.
[10] An interview with Bikker about the case was published in the Dutch newspaper Het Parool, 31-05-2024, see also www.codart.nl/art-works/amsterdam-mayor-and-wife-identified-in-frans-hals-portraits-rijksmuseum.
[11] C.T. Seifert, ‘A “Burgomaster and his wife” indeed: Two portraits by Frans Hals identified’, in C. Dumas et al. (eds.), Connoisseurship: Essays in honour of Fred Meijer, Leiden 2020, pp. 275-280.
[12] A Susanna Bailly was baptized in the Amsterdam Nieuwe Kerk on 9 November 1627; another Susanna Baillij was most likely the daughter of Nicolaes Baillij and Geertruijd Roosterman (Tieleman Roosterman’s sister), who presented their wedding banns in Haarlem in 1628. Even if this Susanna was their first-born child, in 1645 she would have been sixteen or seventeen at the most. Pieter Biesboer, whom I thank for his observations, will elaborate on this case at a later occasion.
[13] Interestingly, S. Slive, Frans Hals, London/New York 1970-1974, vol. 3, p. 80, nos. 156-157, dated these paintings ca. 1643-45, as did several scholars before him.
[14] P. Biesboer, ‘De laughing cavalier van Frans Hals: Een mogelijke identificatie’, in E. Buijsen et al. (eds.), Face book: Studies on Dutch and Flemish portraiture of the 16th-18th centuries: Liber amicorum presented to Rudolf E.O. Ekkart on the occasion of his 65th birthday, Leiden 2012, pp. 133-140.
[15] F. Grijzenhout, ‘Adriaen van Ostade, Frans Hals and the art-loving Van den Heuvel family’, Simiolus 43 (2021), pp. 170-189, spec. 184-187.
[16] S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, De jonge Rembrandt onder tijdgenoten: Godsdienst en schilderkunst in Leiden en Amsterdam, Rotterdam 2006, pp. 76-77, 116 n182, suggests Nicolaes Bambeeck and Jean Pellicorne have been depicted by Hals; see Middelkoop 2019 (note 3), vol. 1, pp. 114-115, and vol. 3, p. 799, no. S. 77, who suggests Pieter Ranst, Carel Gerard and Pieter Codde have also been depicted.
[17] Middelkoop 2019 (note 3), vol. 1, p. 85.
[18] C. Grimm, Frans Hals: Das Gesamtwerk, Stuttgart/Zurich 1989; C. Grimm, Frans Hals: The complete work, New York 1990.
[19] C. Grimm, Frans Hals and his workshop, RKD study, vols. 1-2, The Hague 2023/2024.
[20] P. Biesboer and M. Bijl, A portrait of Pieter Jacobsz Olycan: Frans Hals re-discovered, Zwolle 2006 (ca. 1629-1630); S.A.C. Dudok van Heel and M.J. Bok, ‘Frans Halsen’ aan de muur: Omgang met familieportretten in Haarlem: Voocht-Olycan-Van der Meer, The Hague 2013, pp. 6-7.
[21] F.J. Duparc, ‘Frans Hals’s “Portrait of a young man holding a pair of gloves”’, The Burlington Magazine 164 (2022), pp. 578-580.
[22] M. de Winkel, ‘Frans Hals’s portraits of Michiel de Wael and Cunera van Baersdorp and of Jan de Wael and Aeltje Dircksdr. Pater identified’, in E. Buijsen et al. 2012 (note 10), pp. 141-150.
[23] L. Packer and A. Roy, Frans Hals: The male portrait, London 2021.
[24] C. Brown et al. (eds.), Rembrandt: The master and his workshop, New Haven (CT) 1991.
[25] Regrettably, this exhibition did not have a catalogue, but only a magazine to accompany it, see M. Rikken, Frans Hals ontmoet Singer Sargent, Van Gogh en Manet, Haarlem 2018.
[26] A. Tummers (ed.), Frans Hals: Eye to eye with Rembrandt, Rubens and Titian, Haarlem 2013.
CITE AS:
N.E. Middelkoop, ‘Review of: Frans Hals by Bart Cornelis, Friso Lammertse, Justine Rinnooy Kan and Jaap van der Veen,’ Oud Holland Reviews, September 2024.